Sue Parks
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As far back as she can remember, Sue Parks has always been a runner. Her dad, Bob Parks, was a track and field coach and encouraged his daughters to enjoy the sport from an early age. Growing up in Ypsilanti, Michigan, the women’s running pioneer and her sister played in the high-jump pit in their backyard and challenged neighborhood kids to races around the block.
Those formative years helped lead Parks to a storied career as an athlete and coach who continues to break barriers in the NCAA. Today, Parks is the director of cross-country and track and field at her alma mater, Eastern Michigan University. She’s one of the few women leading a track and field program at the Division 1 level, where four out of five head coaches are men. Years before she became a director, Parks was blazing her own path as one of the first women track stars in her home state.
When she was 11 years old, Parks joined the Wolverine Parkettes, one of the few local track and field clubs that included an age-group team for girls. By the time she reached the high school level, Parks was one of the fastest local athletes. But at the time, Ypsilanti High School didn’t have a track and field team for girls. Her only option was to run with the boys team.
The boys head coach approved of her joining, but school administrators resisted, Parks said. So, Parks along with another star athlete who wanted to compete on the boys baseball team, went to a court hearing, where they had to fight for their right to participate. Ultimately, the athletes won their case in a monumental victory for women’s sports in Michigan.
For the first two years of high school, Parks competed on the boys team as a top-five scorer in cross-country and as a key member on the relay teams in track. She said her teammates welcomed her because they knew she was good enough to contribute, but competitors weren’t as friendly, especially if she beat them. On a few occasions, spectators warned opposing team runners that Parks was approaching them during races by yelling, “A girl is coming, don’t let her beat you!”
Parks also competed alongside some of the fastest women of her generation. Her most memorable race was against Olympic gold medalist Madeline Manning (now Mims) in the Los Angeles Coliseum, where Parks ran her personal best in the 800 meters at the age of 16. She also competed on the U.S. team in the Pan American Games.
After the court hearing, school administrators slowly made progress on creating girls high school teams in the years that followed. By the end of Parks’ junior year, a girls state meet competition was held. By her senior year, she was competing on the first-ever Ypsilanti girls cross-country team. At the season’s end, she won the individual state title.
“I feel good about what I did because it prompted the school and more schools to step up and add the women’s teams and encourage girls to come out to the team to help the sport grow,” Parks told Starting Line 1928. “There was no reason girls shouldn’t have track just like the guys do.”
When she graduated in 1974, Parks hoped to attend an out-of-state college, but recruiting was on a much smaller scale compared to today’s highly competitive recruiting landscape. With fewer programs and little scholarship money, there weren’t as many opportunities for women at the time. For Parks, it made more financial sense to attend a school closer to home.
For the first semester of her freshman year, Parks attended Michigan State University. After a few months, she transferred to Eastern Michigan, where her dad coached the men’s team at the time. While she had an academic scholarship, Parks still had to work part-time doing cleaning services and secretarial work to pay for her tuition and apartment costs. Despite the late nights and hectic day-to-day schedule, Parks still managed to claim three Mid-American Conference cross-country titles. By her senior year, she earned an athletic scholarship.
In her final year running at Eastern Michigan, Parks was approached for a coaching job at Ann Arbor Huron High School. While the opportunity came as a surprise at the time, Parks was encouraged by her dad who told her she’d be great at it.
Four decades later—which also included coaching stints at Ball State, Arizona, Michigan State, and Michigan—Parks still loves seeing athletes put all their effort into meeting a goal.
“For me, it’s never just been about the very top athletes, it’s been across the board,” Parks said. “I’ve gotten maybe just as much pleasure seeing the girl come in as a 20:00 5K runner who ends up running 18 minutes just because they improved two minutes and it’s such a hard thing to do at this level, starting at the bottom and trying to make a difference.”
Parks returned to Eastern Michigan as a coach 18 years ago and has spent the last four seasons as the team’s director, a promotion she got to share with her father before he died in 2021. “My dad was a big part of my journey,” Parks said. “He was my biggest cheerleader.”
Since joining the Eagles, Parks has led a resurgence of the program. In 2021, the men’s team won its 15th Mid-American Conference title in the last 17 years. In 2019, the women’s cross-country team became the first program in history to win five-straight conference team titles.
Looking back on her coaching career, Parks said she’d like to see more women in leadership roles, so they can help mentor the next generation of runners and create spaces that help women thrive on and off the track.
“I’m glad I was part of paving the way, but we still need more because the women out there need good role models,” she said. “They need to see that this is something they can do and it’s not just a male-dominated profession.”
Note about the author: Taylor Dutch is a freelance writer, editor, and producer living in Chicago; a former NCAA track athlete, Taylor specializes in health, wellness, and endurance sports coverage. Her work has appeared in SELF, Runner’s World, Bicycling, Outside, and Podium Runner.
